Abstract

INTRODUCTION
The development of a platform independent middleware for smart-phones and desktop computers, the
so called Plug&Care connector, has been performed by DLR within the EU-AAL-Projekt “The EmotionAAL Village”. The Connector tends to simplify the setup of static and mobile monitoring networks.
DESCRIPTION
The technical innovation is a middleware for well established operating systems of present smart phones and desktop computers. This middleware provides a communication framework to connect different kind of devices with various service backends. Therefore, it has a plugin concept for the integration of protocols used by the devices and services. Hereby, the protocol plugins do not need to care about platform-dependent characteristics like the implementation of the Bluetooth stack. The Plug&Care-Connector is responsible of the abstraction of any hardware and OS layer. Thus manufacturers have to develop just one single plugin to attach their device to many of the available smart phones or desktop computers and to connect it to any of the service backends for which plugins for the Connector are implemented.
In the medical scenario of EmotionAAL the data is transferred by an external device, e.g. a blood glucose meter, to the Plug&Care-Connector. The Connector sends the data to all medical service centers which are represented as plugins in the Connector and which registered for the captured measurement type. Next to this data forwarding the Plug&Care-Connector provides access to the data for local apps,
The Plug&Care-Connector is not restricted to medical setups. Further application areas like the fitness sector, clinical studies or technical environments are imaginable.
The Plug&Care-Connector can reduce costs and increase user acceptance as patients or other users can continue to use their own smart phones.
Up to now connectors have been developed for Google’s Android operating system, for Microsofts Windows Mobile 6.5 and for Java environments on PCs. Drivers are available for one blood glucose meter, a body scales and a blood pressure meter.